


When Net Neutrality Loses, the Vampires Win

by terminallybored



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (and nobody knew), FCC Bashing, Humor, M/M, minor language, vampires are real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 00:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13869006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terminallybored/pseuds/terminallybored
Summary: The Net Neutrality rules have sunset. Internet regulations are rampant. In a middle-class town that's both strange and haunted, this causes certain frustrations. Especially for Stiles, who just so happens to be in charge of research.





	When Net Neutrality Loses, the Vampires Win

**Author's Note:**

> I don't want to call this necessarily a soapbox because I think keeping the internet neutral impacts everybody who participates in fandom. Just in case, though, beware of political leanings beyond this point. 
> 
> Summary of the political statements within: Net Neutrality= Good

**February 2 nd, 2018**

**Time: 1:30 PM**

Stiles swears fitfully and slams his fist down on his desk. He’s hit the computer one time too many already, and one more good one will probably kill the monitor. It also doesn’t make the stupid thing run any faster. The hourglass turns endlessly on a half-loaded webpage with a black background and white text. It’s an old Geocities page, and it looks promising. A lot of good information got dumped onto the web in the late 90s. The glut of amateur content all coming online at the same time made it easy to hide legitimate information behind shitty programming. But the midi music and the little animated bat that replaces the cursor are killing what little internet speed he had these days.

Stiles grabs his phone and dials Scott, wiggling the mouse around so maybe the page won’t crash while it’s loading. The little bat shivers in one spot and then follows his mouse in a jerky, broken line.

“Yeah?” Scott asks, picking up on the third ring.

“Scotty! No time for questions,” Stiles says before Scott has made any attempt to ask one. “I need you to get on the internet and check something for me. I’ll tell you exactly what to put in Google.”

“Uh… I’m on Verizon, so I have to use Yahoo to search,” Scott says, keys tapping on the other end.

Stiles tightens his fist. Goddamn it, FCC. “Okay. Well, this was on page 33 on Google, so you’re gonna have to skip ahead as quick as you can. Put in ‘Vampirism cure, obsidian rune circle, foxglove syrup recipe.’”

“Wait… what?”

Stiles groans. “Scott!”

“Stiles! You can’t just have me searching something like that and not tell me why!” Scott protests. Stiles can hear him dutifully typing again and reminds himself that yeah, that probably sounds really fucking scary coming out of nowhere. Although it’s also really fucking scary no matter what.

“So, Isaac got bitten by a vampire. We have him chained up right now, but we only have until sundown to either cure him or feed him or he starves to death. Deaton said to check for rituals that use obsidian as a grounding agent, so-”

The typing on the other end stops. “Isaac got… what?? Stiles, what? Derek said vampires are bullshit!”

“Scotty, focus. Start scrolling through the search pages. Go to page 30 and start looking for a Geocities site called Penny the Pretty Pagan.” Stiles slams down on the F5 key as the page gives him a loading error. The screen blanks and gives him back the hourglass.

“Stiles. I thought-”

“Yeah, Derek thought vampires were bullshit. Apparently, they’re not. Or there’s some other creature that infects people by biting them and sucking their blood.” And if there was, Stiles’ internet was way too slow right now for him to try and research a distinction. He shakes his mouse in frustration at the scant two inches of black page that have loaded.

“I’m gonna call you back. Keep searching. Penny the Pretty Pagan.”

Stiles hangs up and dials Lydia. Her voicemail picks up, so he hangs up and dials again. As it rings, he braces himself for the onslaught.

“Stiles! I was in class!” Lydia hisses into the phone when she picks it up, making Stiles wince a little. He’s going to owe her huge for making her step out of a class she found important enough to attend.

“I know, but it’s an emergency. I need obsidian and foxglove. Go to the library and find out where I can get some. Today, in Beacon Hills. Nothing on etsy.”

“Obsidian?”

“Vampire cure,” Stiles says, checking his phone as it buzzes. “Scott is calling. Let me know what you find.” Stiles drops Lydia’s call, hoping the ‘vampire’ part will make her forgive that he hung up on her, and takes Scott’s. “What are the ingredients in the syrup?”

“I dunno, I can’t access the website,” Scott says sheepishly. “It’s not included in my internet package.”

“How is a Geocities page not included?”

“I dunno, man! It was super expensive, so we only have the extra Netflix and email packages.” Stiles can almost hear the helpless shrug because he knows what Scott sounds like when he does that helpless shrug. “I don’t know how they pick what counts. Want me to call Verizon?”

Stiles checks the time. 2:12. 3 hours is, without exaggeration, not enough time to deal with an internet carrier. “No time for that. Um… okay, see if you can Google florists and crystal shops in Beacon Hills. Call them and see who has obsidian and foxglove.”

“I have to use Ya-”

 “Yeah, Yahoo. Just search it. If you can’t open the page, use the phone book and just start calling places.” Stiles hangs up and immediately dials Lydia.

“I want you to know I’m getting super dirty looks for commandeering a computer for this,” Lydia whispers into her phone. “Seriously, everyone has to use the library computers for everything now. I had to pull rank on someone to get their computer.”

“There are ranks at MIT?” Stiles asks, then shakes his head. He’s gonna ask about that later. Right now he has to focus. “Never mind. Scott is looking for the stuff. His internet package sucks for research. I need you to find a Geocities site...”

 

* * *

 

**February 2 nd, 2018**

**Time: 4:10 PM**

Stiles has a paper bag full of wine-red foxglove flowers in the backseat. He has half-written, half drawn directions to a new age shop just outside of town. The paper crinkles under his fist as he steers the Jeep with one hand and dials his phone with the other. He hates dialing this number.

Peter picks up halfway through the first ring, like he knows Stiles doesn’t want to talk to him. “Stiles. What a surprise.”

“I’ve got a recipe and a ritual I need you to translate out of Latin,” Stiles says, in lieu of a greeting. Greetings are for when time isn’t almost gone. And for people who aren’t Peter.

“How old is the Latin that you need _me_ to translate it?” Peter asks, doing that thing where he’s interested and trying to sound really uninterested. “Some lost page of the Bestiary?”

“Newer than that. My internet is being stupid. I called my provider and they said my searches were flagged as suspicious and now the pages won’t…” Stiles eases his grip on the steering wheel when his fingers begin to lock up from gripping the wheel too tightly. Calm. Calm, Stiles. “Look. I’m sending you two pictures. The ingredients were in English but the instructions are in Latin. Just tell me what they say. It’s for Isaac.” Not that that means anything to Peter except that Derek will owe him if he helps his Beta, and Peter likes it when people owe him.

Stiles sends the photos at the next red light, along with a short text to Derek.

[I love you and I may have just indebted you to your psycho uncle a little bit. Sorry. -SS]

Derek doesn’t answer because he’s trying to contain a half-formed werewolf/vampire hybrid. Peter answers in under two minutes.

“I hope you don’t need this tonight.”

Stiles feels his heart sink down into his stomach. “Uh… I need it in about an hour, actually. I got the flowers, it won’t take that long to boil them down, right?”

“The syrup has to be brewed when Mercury is in retrograde.” Peter pauses like that means anything in the world to Stiles. After a few seconds, he sighs. “When Mercury is in retrograde, it’s a period that’s astrologically sound for making preparations on-”

“Okay, but when does it go into retrograde?” Stiles asks, but he kind of expects the answer isn’t ‘in the next twenty minutes.’

“March 22nd.”

Stiles lets out a long string of curses that have built up over the last four hours. “Okay… so we have until sunset to find another cure for vampirism. What internet packages do you have?”

“Just Facebook. What else does one need?”

Stiles pulls over and rests his forehead against the steering wheel. His brain hurts. It feels like he’s turned it inside out and wrung it dry. Come on, Stiles. Just… think.

“Have you considered robbing a blood bank?” Peter asks cheerily on the other end, sounding like this is all quite enjoyable for him. Of course it is, Peter thrives on chaos.

Stiles gives his brain one last thorough scraping, then turns his head just enough to see the dashboard clock. 4:21. 60 minutes to cure a condition he’s still kind of surprised exists. 60 minutes for a Hail Mary miracle pass. Just one little miracle.

 

* * *

 

**February 2 nd, 2018**

**Time: 5:25 PM**

The sun is just beginning to dip below the horizon. In the bowels of the abandoned train station, Derek can’t see the sun, but he can tell. The wet, base snarls Isaac has been making from where he’s chained in the rail car (the trick proved to be chains and piling debris on him, then adding more debris and more chains when he begins to pry free) are changing to something that sounds more painful. Derek flexes his fingers anxiously, claws flicking in and out. He checks his phone again.

[Where are you? -DH] -sent 5:10 PM

[Stiles. Answer me. -DH] -sent 5:18 PM

[What’s going on? Where are you? -DH] -sent 5:20 PM

Still no answer. He looks at the time and forces in a deep breath to tamp down the panic. There’s still… time. A little time. But there’s still-

“Derek!” Stiles half runs and half trips down the stairs into the crumbling lair and brandishes a blue lunch cooler at him like a trophy. “Here!”

“Is this that syrup you were talking about?” Derek pushes open the cooler and snorts harshly, turning his head at the rushing smell of copper from inside. “…blood bags?”

“If we can’t cure him, we have to feed him, right?”

Derek frowns, instantly disliking the idea. The sounds Isaac is making are turning from enraged pain into something weaker, though. More piteous. “What about the ritual you found?”

“Didn’t work out.” Stiles pulls out a bag. “Can he drink it cold? It’s probably gross either way, but he sounds hungry enough not to care, right?”

“I saw in an episode of Buffy once that crumbling crackers into it makes the texture nicer,” Peter says, using the stairs far more effectively, carrying another cooler in each hand.

“So… the backup plan is that we keep Isaac as a vampire?”

“Were-pire,” Peter offers helpfully.

Stiles scowls and shoves the bag into Derek’s chest. “Like you can talk. You said vampires were fake. And you don’t even have internet anymore.”

“I didn’t understand the-”

“Yeah, I know!” Stiles snaps, grabbing Derek’s shoulder’s and turning him towards the train car. “The internet sucks now and nobody understands their packages. You can thank the FCC after you get Isaac turned into a were-pire. And make sure he won’t kill us all.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Tumblr in December of 2017 in the period ramping up to the FCC vote. As of March 2018, the fight for Net Neutrality is still ongoing. I have no end of appreciation to how much fandoms, who live and breathe online, have taken this cause to heart. You guys all rock.


End file.
